Devolution1: transference (as of rights, powers, property, or responsibility) to another especially: the surrender of powers to local authorities by a central government.
Smokescreen2: something designed to obscure, confuse, or mislead.
While moves to get power out of Westminster is a laudable ambition for one of the most centralised countries in Europe, I keep asking the question: where does that power go once this transferal takes place? To which bodies is it given, to whom is it vested? Confusingly, the current devolution agenda is simultaneously seeking to push power down to a sub-national structure of public authorities that has not yet been fully formed. While councils and regional bodies exist across the Country they do so at different scales and sizes, and with different functions and funding. The sub-national structure of governance is, simply put, a mess3.
This is where local government reorganisation comes in. Unfortunately, as I have extensively covered before, this is not being done in an attempt to bring coherence to the hotchpotch of arrangements for public administration and democratic accountability across England. Rather, it seems to me to be an economically-driven attempt to save money and reduce the number of relationships that central Government has to navigate across (currently) 319 councils4. The process is notable for what’s lacking: clear design principles, international analysis of what works in terms of local governance, understanding of what people actually want, diverse views in the room, and knowledge of the places involved.
This is the same approach to change that sees legacy IT systems persist so far beyond the point at which the cost of incrementally fixing them now outweighs the original upfront cost of building something new and functionally more efficient. Legacy systems persist because no-one wants to rip the plaster off and invest in the future, a failure of imagination, process and annual budgeting cycles.
We see the same thing play out elsewhere. Layering on fix after fix, initiative after initiative, policy after policy, pilot after pilot, processes to fix gaps in processes, and so on. You know what we end up with – because we have to handle the results of this on a day to day basis in most organisations we work with or for.
And yet here we are. Should we not put in place a coherent system of local government first, before devolution of powers, following the maxim of form following function? Or perhaps park the restructuring for now. Heaven knows there are enough challenges to address without the disruption of restructuring. Why aren’t we focusing on the actual role of LAs rather than their structure? Or their financial sustainability? Or their place-shaping role in creating sustainable communities for the next generation? Or their convening role locally to coordinate the wider public and third sector effort to address local issues and support some of the most vulnerable in society?
I do believe that if we had an open national conversation around the nature of devolution and how we might apply the principle of subsidiarity to our public services and democratic organisations we might better design solutions. The idea that decisions should be taken as close to those they affect would result in an analysis of what is best done at a community level, a sub-regional level, a regional level and a national level. Then we can design the best administrative geography to bring this to life, drawing also on the research and local knowledge already mentioned.
Because without it we are left with some confusing situations.
The current round of restructuring will perpetuate an administrative geography in England that means you could move multiple times and experience a different democratic arrangement each time. It’s like the political version of waste and recycling collection arrangements.
London Boroughs inexplicably exempt from restructuring when they are much smaller, on average, than most shire councils, especially if the real aim is an economic one, or if the solution is simply bigger councils?
Why are we breaking up shire counties into unitaries whose geography makes no sense to the way people lead their lives? I’ve written before about this because I believe it is important. There is so much talk about the renewed focus on place, and yet there seems to be so little understanding among policy makers.
Why do we seem to insist on establishing strategic authorities that make no sense in some parts of the country? Sure, in the Tees Valley the council footprints are smaller and the social, economic and physical geography seems to create a natural sub-region. But tell me, how will anyone living in Norfolk and Suffolk care to vote for a Mayor covering both counties, whose main point of connection besides a shared inland border and a coastline with the North Sea is the A140, a railway line to Liverpool Street, and a historical link to a larger East Anglia5. If this plan goes ahead I can only ever see it ultimately going the same way as the Policy and Crime Commissioners.
These challenges are only scratching the surface. I worry that our current approach serves to weaken democracy at the very time when it feels under threat. How can we ask citizens to be active and participate in democratic institutions if they have no idea what they are, what they do, who is accountable for what, or how you might influence them? If there is something that I would love to see emerge from the times we are living in, it is a renewed sense of democracy and engagement in the systems and processes that bring it to life.
But there is one unintended consequence of all these restructures that I think could be more pernicious than the others: the impact on the towns, villages and cities where we live. Our communities. Places we call home.
This is what I will turn to in part 2.
1 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/devolution
2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smokescreen
3 The practical matrix is: which unit(s) deliver services (two-tier, county unitary, metro borough, London borough) × which strategic body sits above (mayoral SA, foundation SA, GLA, none). Someone in Wigan lives under metro borough + Greater Manchester MCA; someone in Carlisle under unitary + soon a Cumbria mayoral authority; someone in mid-Norfolk, until decisions settle, under two-tier with nothing above; someone in Bristol under city unitary + West of England MCA.
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_England#Current_administrative_hierarchy
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